Cindy, I don't think you have the slightest idea of just how lucky you are that things are working out for you so far. If you had the slightest clue about what you're talking about and the sheer responsibility involved, you would not be telling people this is ok. Any true wolf lover who has these magnificent animals' best interest at heart and has the slightest clue about what's involved in keeping them responsibly would never dream to be so irresponsible as to even suggest that this is ok and might work out for some one.

In VAST MAJORITY of cases where people think they can keep a wolf or a hybrid as a pet, the results are tragic. These animals are not pets, they are not cooler looking versions of dogs, their behaviour is completely different, they have no need for human companionship and in fact dislike it, they are extremely difficult to keep, require specialized and expensive diets, and very often do become aggressive, and the fad episode ends with the animal being put down or shipped away to a specialized reserve. You might as well think that you're going to keep an alligator in an aquarium in your family room.

If you like the look of them, buy yourself a poster. If you want a companion animal that looks similar, consider any of the northern breeds, but picking a breed based on looks alone is a terrible idea and all of the northern breeds (huskies, malamutes) don't make good pets in all circumstances and can be very difficult to live with if you are not prepared to care for them properly.

I know people personally who have owned or had access to wolf hybrids. In all cases the animals were put down and their owners could not tell you enough how horrible of an experience it was to be imprisoned by the amount of care and responsibility that comes with owning an animal that plain and simple is not pet material. In all cases they had to have very expensive and elaborate holding cages built in their yards, these were obviously only large enough to contain the animal, not large enough to provide adequate exercise space. Even then in many cases the animals found ways to escape and when they did all they were interested in was killing things. In one case one of these animals was especially interested in killing any neighbourhood children, you can imagine how terrifying that was when the owner knew he couldn't reliably keep the animal locked up. The animal eventually tried to kill his son, who he grew up with and knew very well, this is when he was put down and the family was left with the emotional scars of the ordeal and the stress of keeping this animal for the past few years. It took this man over 10 years before he was able to ever own a dog again and he is a major animal lover.

There is a lot of scientific material out there showing the massive behavioural differences between dogs, which have been domesticated for thousands of years, and wolves which are wild animals and even in captivity never become dog like in their behaviour.

One European experiment comes to mind. Scientists raised wolf cubs, bottle fed them and handled them in their homes since they were a couple days old. They did every thing to raise them like a dog. By 8 weeks of age the wolf cubs already began to show strong anti social tendencies towards humans, by age of 4 months they became highly aggressive and very destructive. They didn't as much as made eye contact with their human companions and either avoided contact with them or aggressed towards them over resources. By 8 months they were too dangerous to keep and the experiment was stopped. Despite of every thing they did, the wolves became wolves. It's in their genetics and you can't changed that with love and understanding. Any one who thinks so is delusional.

Here is an excellent documentary about the relationship between dogs and people, at some point it goes over the wolf study with some detail and shows footage from the experiment.

Get yourself a dog, they make fantastic companions. Even better, adopt one and save a life.

I knew someone that had a coyote/dog and when the woman moved to a new house the coyote/dog kept going back to their old house . It did not like being moved around like a pet dog. The owner was not good with training her coyote/dog and did not understand anything about coyotes . I felt really bad for the poor animal . It wanted to be wild and not some trained house pet. The owner was treating the poor animal awful as it was not being a 'good' pet! I agree with everything you said 110% !
I loves wolves and I can't stand it when people mess with them and try to made 'pets' out of them because they think it cool. It is not cool at all for the wolves .